Personalized Output


After data processing, the extracted knowledge has to be converted into intelligent information, interaction, or interface for each customer. Every segment or cluster is a separate e-marketing opportunity that should be fulfilled differently. This section focuses on the output of e-marketing personalization: content, structure and presentation adaptations based on the constructed user , usage and environment models, as well as the resulting secondary inferences.

Personalized Content

This type of adaptations is applied to the informational content of a Web site. The information is filtered and then presented to the users. This can have many forms including additional or reduced information, optional explanations , recommendations, offers, special prices, products, services, news, e- mails , help, etc. The techniques used for producing such adaptations include inserting, removing, altering, sorting, coloring, dimming text fragments , using stretch-text, etc.

Personalized Structure

This type of adaptations relates to changes in the link structure of a Web site. It is important for the user to see only the information of interest. Here, we refer to changes that can be applied to the link structure of Web pages, sections, categories, etc., as well as to recommendations for products, services, information, navigation, etc. The techniques used for producing such adaptations are sorting, hiding, unhiding, adding, removing, enabling, disabling, or highlighting links.

Personalized Presentation

This type of adaptations refers to changes that affect not the content itself, but its format and layout (e.g., from images to text, form text to audio, from video to still images) and it is mainly used for Web access through PDAs or mobile phones, or in Web sites that cater to handicapped persons.

Recommendations

Although recommendations belong to the personalized content output category, they are examined separately because they feature as an important component of e-commerce Web sites. Their purpose is to provide access to specific items through promotional links, such as those that are supplied by cross-selling or up-selling options.

  • Cross-selling: it suggests products related to the one(s) the user is currently viewing. In many cases, these are complementary products. For example, proposing a music CD with a book or batteries with toys.

  • Up-selling: it suggests products perhaps more expensive or advanced to the one(s) the user has chosen . The customer will be informed about products available in the next (upper) price level, which he/she may not have known about. The degree of applicability of this tactic depends on the type of products, and this also applies to cross-selling and up-selling as well.

  • Opinions of other customers: it suggests additional products that the customer may also like to purchase, based on what other customers ( considered as like- minded) have bought.

  • History data: analyzing the history of past purchases (stored in a transaction database), the e-shop is able to offer customers a targeted range of choices that are most likely to fit their profile.

It is worth mentioning that the home page of a Web site is a good place to put items in order to be promoted, as it is a place that draws by default user attention. This page should be constantly updated to keep people coming back. A good Web site design should provide an option (in the administrative page) that allows the store manager to determine whether a product is to be treated as a featured product appearing on the home page, or not.

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Figure 3-5: Examples of personalization output



Contemporary Research in E-marketing (Vol. 1)
Agility and Discipline Made Easy: Practices from OpenUP and RUP
ISBN: B004V9MS42
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 164

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